Farmworkers Score Victory Against the Bell

A campaign that brought together farmworkers, students, and faith
communities has ended in a decisive victory for the workers who pick
the tomatoes for Taco Bell. Under an agreement between the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers and Taco Bell, workers will receive one cent more per
pound of tomatoes picked—nearly a doubling of their current wages—and
suppliers will be bound to a code of conduct that prevents indentured
servitude and forced labor. This agreement affects thousands of workers
in Florida and up the East Coast.

The Coalition, based in southwest Florida, is a collective of immigrant
farmworkers who pick tomatoes and other produce all across America.
From 1997–2000, the group exposed three modern-day slavery operations,
freeing more than 500 workers from debt bondage in U.S. fields. The
group uses a community radio station to reach isolated
farmworkers [see YES! Spring 2005].

In the late 1990s, when wages for tomato pickers had fallen by as
much as 60 percent during the previous two decades. the coalition asked
the fast food chain to pressure its Florida suppliers to raise wages
and improve working conditions. When Taco Bell refused, the coalition
started a nationwide boycott in April 2001, focusing its efforts on
high schools and college campuses. Using their Truth Tours nationwide
bus campaigns to spread their story, the Coalition and their student
allies got over 21 schools and universities to prevent or cancel Taco
Bell contracts.

The coalition staged hunger strikes and demonstrations outside Taco
Bell headquarters and gained support from faith and human rights
groups, including the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church,
the National Council of Churches, and former President Jimmy Carter.